Fledgeling
by JeSuisUnePomme
Summary: DenNoresque Vampire AU ficlet for Halloween. Nor contemplates his life and newfound circumstances.


I had kept myself as far away from civilization as I could for a reason. The moment I had died and opened my eyes, blinking against the sudden onslaught of colours I've never seen before, I knew I couldn't exist near people. It was not just seeing things I never imagined before that drove me away, but also the near constant thirst, the sounds, and the smells that people carried around with them like bags of invisible luggage. It was a war on my senses and I couldn't handle being in such close proximity to people.

I didn't mind, of course, I hadn't particularly enjoyed people while I was alive.

It had been almost four years since I had any real contact with another living human being. Who in their right mind traveled to the arctic circle for vacation? And then went cross country skiing as an amateur, got lost, accidentally discovered a very well-hidden cabin nestled in the trees, and knocked on the door? Nevermind the fact that all the windows were very carefully boarded up and there were at least half-a-dozen signs out front warning anyone who stumbled across my humble abode, "Danger!", "Keep Out!", "No Trespassers!", "Private Property!", and "Untimely death surely awaits anyone who approaches!" I had all these signs in several different languages - just in case. Most who found me turned away after the sign with the skull and crossbones and either died in the elements or made their way back to civilization. Either outcome was fine in my opinion.

When the stranger was still a mile away I began to pray to every god I could think of off the top of my head that the stranger would not find me, and if they did, would turn back and disappear. But the stranger pressed on and approached and they smelled like the essence of sunlight - that thing I had told myself to forget. Even with my fence curled in barbed wire, foreboding signage, boarded up windows, and intentionally unwelcoming front stoop, I still smelled the stranger approach well before he even knocked.

I didn't want to answer the door, but the stranger was relentless and continued to knock, then call out that he was lost and needed to get warm and borrow a phone and, "do you know the way back to the lodge? I seem to have misplaced the trail markers," and then a light laugh. I groaned to myself as the stranger babbled on in a thick Danish accent. Of all the places in the world a lost tourist could come from, it had to be a _Dane_ that found himself at my front door. "I got separated from my friends hours ago…" Oh good God; the predator in me stirred. It was almost too easy. This lamb cut itself from the flock and presented itself to the wolf for an easy dinner.

I held my face in my hands, crouched in a corner, and began counting in my head, hoping to distract myself from the smells coming at me from just beyond my front door. I didn't need the reminder of how hungry I was, that I hadn't had a proper meal in ages. I tried to ignore my instincts, I fought against them as long as I could, but the idiot outside wouldn't give up and I couldn't hold back forever…

And now I was standing in my front hall with the dead body of a very handsome blonde man on the floor.

I had only a handful of minutes in order to decide what exactly I was going to do. I had made it the last four years by myself, I wasn't looking for company. But killing a man in - cold blood? By accident? However one would label it, it did not sit well with me.

I chewed on my lip. It still tasted of the man lying at my feet.

Then, in a snap decision, I fell to my knees and tore at the flesh of my wrist with my teeth, then brought the bleeding wound to the mouth of the dead man.

I didn't have to wait long. Several painfully silent minutes went by as I watched some of the colour return to the man's face, then he violently coughed, gasping for air that wouldn't quite satisfy his lungs - I recalled the familiar sensation still fresh in my memory from only four years ago. Blue eyes blinked open and settled on me, widening in surprise..

"Holy shit, did I die and go to heaven?"

I tried to respond right away, but when I opened my mouth, nothing more than a strangled noise escaped my throat - it had been too long since I'd had reason to use my voice. I swallowed several times before trying again.

"Yes," I said, sounding far more gravely than I remembered ever sounding, "and no."

"Wait - what?" Those blue eyes blinked in confusion.

Was the dead stranger not seeing the sudden burst of ultraviolet light? Could he not sense the heat radiating from whatever creatures were wandering through the forest at this very moment, or smell the dead arctic fox just beyond my small cabin, buried under only a few centimeters of snow?

We stared at each other, neither quite sure what to do.

"I'm sorry, did you say that yes, I died?" The stranger looked mildly panicked, then overwhelmed as he suddenly became aware of all the new sensations that came along with dying. "Holy crap, I think I must be dehydrated. Or, like, hypothermic because I am seeing some shit." The stranger rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and blinked, clearly trying to remove the new ability to see things mere human eyes could not.

"That's not going to help."

"I think I'm either having a stroke or the beginnings of a migraine."

"Neither. You're dead."

The stranger continued to sit on the floor, rubbing at his eyes, his ears, his temples, murmuring to himself, wondering aloud what he ate recently and if that was the root of his newfound medical concerns. Suddenly the stranger looked up.

"Oh my God, I'm sitting on your floor and you don't even know who I am. I'm Mat, by the way. Matthias Andersen. Do you have a phone I can borrow or do you know how to get back to the lodge?" If I still had a living heart it would have fluttered at the innocence of those wide, blue eyes and the shy half-smile he flashed in my direction.

"You don't understand," I sighed heavily and Matthias' eyebrows knit together in confusion, "you're _dead_."

"I feel pretty alive!" Matthias flexed his arms in a show of how alive he was.

I was suddenly regretting my decision to bring Matthias back from dead to join me in eternity. Either he was in shock (understandable) or an idiot.

"If I was dead," Matthias continued, "I'd be partying it up in Valhalla!" He rose to shaking feet and dusted off his pants and flexed again. "Aside from a few, uhh," he wavered, "do you smell that?"

He was definitely an idiot. I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose in exasperation. His face had a deathly pallor, his chin still dripping in my blood and he was trying to convince me, his _murderer_ , that he was alive.

"Yes," I said, also standing and eyeing him warily, "it's a fox. It died this morning."

"Oh." He seemed to accept this as a reasonable answer for no more than five seconds before his mouth fell open, "I'm sorry, _what_?" At that same moment he seemed to register the fact that my own face was still painted in his blood. He had the decency to look terrified and he took a step back towards the door, holding his hands up in front of him.

Nevermind that he was too late to save himself.

Before I could point out that he no longer had a beating heart, those lovely blue eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. I sighed.

This is why I had never bothered changing anyone until now. I still remembered what changing from a living being to a dead one was like; fledgling vampires are unpredictable at best, going from aggressively thirsty to weeping over their lost life to passing out while their bodies adjusted.

I did pinch the bridge of my nose this time as, for the second time that afternoon, I found myself standing over a man on my floor wondering what to do.

I couldn't kick him out and risk the lives of the villagers - he'd find civilization eventually - nor could I leave him in a crumpled mess on the floor of my entryway...

I was not impressed with the amount of effort I had to exert in order to pick him up off the floor. I carried him to my bed and lay him atop it. I couldn't help but admire the angular features of his face. I was not pleased that I'd now be sharing a tiny cabin with a baby vampire while I myself was still so young - and a _Danish_ one at that - but, perhaps it wouldn't be all bad. He was easy on the eyes, at least.

I watched his eyes move beneath his eyelids and frowned. I remembered the nightmares that accompanied the change. Matthias was likely playing helpless observer as his life flashed before him like a movie.

I watched for several minutes, my hand reaching towards him, hesitating, undecided whether or not I should brush the hair from his forehead out of his eyes or leave it be. He was still just a stranger to me, but I had not yet lost my humanity. The fact that I still had the instinct to reach out and comfort him was both a surprise and a relief to me. I never considered myself a particularly compassionate person in life and I raised an eyebrow as I stared at my hand still in the air. My fingertips burned for contact and something in my chest constricted, some leftover human reaction, as I let my gaze fall back to his unconscious face.

I finally did reach out and run my fingers through his hair. It was softer than I had anticipated and I would have blushed, if I was able, at the realization that I enjoyed the sensation. Matthias' eyes stilled in their furious movement and he turned into my hand, his face relaxing.

I had planned to live out my eternity alone, I never considered the possibility of another vampire companion - the concept seemed strange to me since I had been left alone from the beginning. I found myself appreciative of having another person with me and considering that maybe this was a _good_ thing. At least, while he was passed out and silent…

I smirked to myself.

He was a lucky bastard, I thought, realizing I'd already made my decision. He was going to have my help to get him through the beginning. He was, after all, my responsibility.

"You can stay with me," I told him, despite the fact he could not hear me. "I'll make sure you survive your death."

And that's how I fell into the role of caretaker to a fledgling vampire.


End file.
